"Home is wherever I'm with you."
Ahh, home, let me come home."
~Home – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
~ December 15th ~
I had cleaned the penthouse four times.
Not because it was dirty—Aadyant kept the place obsessively tidy—but because I needed to do something with my hands. With the nervous energy crawling under my skin. With the hours that refused to pass fast enough and also far, far too fast.
"You've vacuumed the living room twice in the last hour," Aadya said from the kitchen island, watching me with a cup of tea and visible amusement.
"The corner by the bookshelf was dusty."
"The corner by the bookshelf has never been cleaner in its life. I'm worried it's going to file a restraining order."
I stopped. Looked at the vacuum. Put it back in the closet.
"I'm spiralling."
"A little," Aadya agreed kindly. "But it's okay. It's understandable. Come have tea."
I sat at the kitchen island across from her, wrapping my hands around the mug she slid over. The penthouse smelled like the flowers Aadyant had arranged this morning—white daisies and something warm and welcoming. He'd spent twenty minutes adjusting them before leaving to get the family from the airport.
Twenty minutes on flowers. For me.
"Tell me what's in your head," Aadya said.
"Everything. All at once." I stared into my tea. "What if Dadu doesn't like me? Aadyant said he can be intimidating. What if your mother—Devika—what if she expected someone different? What if Ivaan thinks I'm weird? What if the twins think—"
"Kashvi."
"What if all of them look at me and think, why is she here, what does she have to offer, she's just a scholarship student from—"
"Kashvi." Aadya's voice was firm but gentle. "Stop. Breathe."
I forced air into my lungs.
"Now listen to me." She reached across the island and took my hand. "I have been telling my family about you for months. Not because they pressured me. Not because Aadyant asked me to. Because I wanted to. Because you are someone worth knowing, Kashvi. And I needed them to know who my brother had fallen for."
"What did you tell them?"
She smiled. "That you're talented. That you're brave, even when you don't feel like you are. That you're the kind of person who remembers how everyone takes their tea. That you stayed the night in the hospital when I was sick and didn't make it a big deal. That you've become my best friend."
My throat tightened.
"Maa has been asking about you every week," Aadya continued. "She wants to meet the girl who makes Aadyant laugh properly. Not his public laugh—the real one. The one he only does when he's not performing." She squeezed my hand. "You know which one I mean."
I did.
I'd heard it that night he'd lost a card game spectacularly and collapsed onto the couch clutching his chest, helpless and undignified and so purely himself.
"What if I'm not enough?"
"You already are." Aadya looked at me steadily. "You've been enough this entire time. You just keep waiting for permission to believe it."
I was quiet for a moment.
"When are they landing?"
"Aadyant just texted." She checked her phone. "Baggage claim now. Maybe thirty minutes."
Thirty minutes.
I looked down at myself. The outfit I'd chosen, changed, reconsidered, and changed back three times: soft burgundy kurti over straight-cut dark jeans, hair half-up. Neat but not trying too hard. Indian but California. Respectful but like herself.
Or at least, that was what I'd been going for.
"You look beautiful," Aadya said, reading my face.
"I look nervous."
"You can look both." She stood and came around the island, adjusting the kurti with the practiced ease "There. Perfect."
I exhaled. "I can do this."
"You can do this."
My phone buzzed.
Aadyant: In the car. Twenty minutes. How are you holding up?
Me: Vacuumed the same corner twice.
Aadyant: So, spiralling. Okay. Jaan, listen to me.
Aadyant: They already love you. They just haven't met you yet.
Aadyant: And if anyone makes you uncomfortable, tap my hand twice. We'll make an excuse. I promise.
Me: I love you.
Aadyant: I love you too. See you soon.
I set my phone down. Took a slow breath.
Okay.
Okay.
~
The arrivals level of LAX was chaotic on any day. With my entire family, it was a minor catastrophe.
Ivaan had insisted on pushing three trolleys simultaneously. He was now regretting this choice. Ziva was filming everything on her phone with running commentary. Rishvik had somehow already found an airport Starbucks and was walking with an obscenely large drink. Mihir Chachu was trying to get everyone organized. Mahika Chachi was managing the carry-ons. Dadi was looking at everything with warm curiosity.
And my Dadu—Vikram Rathore, former king, man who had single-handedly turned a crumbling estate into a dynasty, who'd once made a government official cry with nothing but a raised eyebrow—was calmly observing all of it with the expression of someone who had long since accepted that his family was magnificent chaos.
And Maa.
My mother had been talking about Kashvi for three months. She'd grilled Aadya for details. She'd asked me questions I didn't know how to answer. She'd said, two weeks ago, on a video call: "Aadyant, the way you talk about this girl. It's the way your Baba talked about me." And then she'd hung up before I could embarrass myself.
"Beta, why are you smiling?" Dadi asked, appearing at my elbow.
"Just thinking."
"About Kashvi?"
I wasn't even going to pretend. "Yes."
Dadi patted my arm. "She sounds lovely. I've been looking forward to this very much."
"She's nervous. Please be gentle with her."
"When am I ever not gentle?"
Dadu materialized on my other side. "Ready?"
I held his gaze. My grandfather was a man who communicated volumes in silence, and right now his silence was asking: Is she worth it?
"Yes," I said.
His expression didn't change. But he gave a single, small nod.
Good enough for now.
"Ivaan, leave the trolleys alone!" Maa called from somewhere behind us.
"I have them under control!"
A crash.
"IVAAN."
I shook my head, smiling, and herded my family toward the car.
~
I heard them before I saw them.
The elevator pinged, and a wave of sound flooded the penthouse entrance—overlapping voices, laughter, someone saying something in fast Hindi, a younger voice protesting, and then the door opened and they were here.
My heart climbed straight into my throat.
Aadyant came in first, and his eyes found mine immediately. He crossed the room in a few strides and took my hand.
"Hey," he said quietly. "You okay?"
"Ask me in five minutes."
His hand tightened around mine.
And then the family filled the penthouse, and I understood what Aadyant had meant when he said "everyone."
Aadhir Rathore came first—Aadyant's father, the King. He was tall and serious looking, with the same dark eyes as his son, the same set to his jaw. He looked exactly like what he was: a man who expected the world to stand at attention.
Behind him: Devika Rathore.
I'd been most nervous about her. Meeting your boyfriend's mother for the first time was already terrifying. Meeting a queen was something else entirely.
But Devika Rathore looked at me and smiled, and it was the same smile I'd seen on Aadyant's face in his most unguarded moments—warm and genuine and completely without performance.
"Kashvi," she said. Just my name. Like she'd been waiting a long time to say it.
"Namaste." My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"Namaste, beta." She stepped forward, took both my hands in hers, and looked at me properly. Not the scrutinizing look I'd been dreading. Just looking. Like she wanted to see me.
"Aadya has told me so much about you," she said. "But she didn't mention that you have the most expressive eyes I've ever seen."
I didn't know what to say to that.
"Maa," Aadyant said, half-warning, half-amused.
"I'm making an observation." She released my hands and stepped back, but her smile stayed.
"Kashvi." Aadyant's father extended his hand. Formal, measured. "I'm Aadhir. It's good to meet you.
"It's good to meet you too, sir."
Something flickered in his expression—approval, maybe, or at least the absence of disapproval. He moved aside.
"KASHVI BHABHI!"
I turned just in time for Ivaan to insert himself in front of me, sixteen years old and entirely too much energy for any contained space. He looked like Aadyant would have looked two years younger—same jaw, same height, but with an open, guileless grin that his brother had clearly left behind somewhere along the way.
Bhabhi.
The word hit me somewhere unexpected.
"Um. Hi. I'm Kashvi."
"I know! I've heard so much about you. Aadya wouldn't stop talking about you, and then Aadyant got all weird about it whenever we asked questions—"
"Ivaan." Aadyant's voice carried clear warning.
Ivaan grinned, unbothered. "I'm just saying. You're basically family already." He said it so casually, like it wasn't a sentence that would rewrite something in my chest.
"Rishvik and Ziva," Aadyant said, steering me gently. "My cousins."
The twins were fifteen and looked it—Rishvik with an assessing gaze that was somehow older than his years, Ziva practically vibrating with the effort of staying still.
"Hi," Rishvik said. Quiet. Watchful.
"Hi," I said back, matching his energy.
Something shifted in his face. Faint approval, maybe.
"Kashvi." Ziva abandoned all pretense of restraint. "Can you actually teach me to design? Aadya said you might—is it true you did a whole collection with recycled materials? What are you working on now? Do you like draping or patternmaking better because I read that—"
"Ziva," Mahika Aunty said gently. "Breathe, sweetheart.
"Sorry!" Ziva looked mortified. "Sorry, I just—I've been excited."
I found myself smiling. "I prefer draping. And yes, recycled collection. And I'd love to talk to you about it later."
Ziva looked like she might levitate.
Mihir Uncle and Mahika Aunty both shook my hand with the warmth of people who'd made a decision about me before they arrived and had only come to confirm it. I appreciated that more than I could say.
And then, at the end of the small receiving line that had somehow formed without anyone organizing it: the grandparents.
His Dadi—Avantika Rathore—had the gentlest face I had ever seen. Soft features, soft eyes, the kind of presence that made you feel instantly that you'd known her for years.
"Beta," she said, and opened her arms.
I walked into her hug without thinking.
She held me for a moment, and I breathed in the scent of sandalwood and something floral, and my eyes stung in a way I hadn't expected.
"You're going to be just fine," she murmured against my hair. Like she knew. Like she'd seen the anxiety I'd been carrying for weeks and had decided, gently, to take some of it off my hands.
When I pulled back, she was smiling.
His Dadu stood beside her. Vikram Rathore. He was exactly as formidable as Aadyant had described—still and self-possessed in a way that made the room rearrange itself around him. His eyes were sharp, assessing, a little difficult to read.
He looked at me for a moment.
I held his gaze. Held it, even though everything in me wanted to look away.
"Kashvi Singh," he said. His voice was measured, formal.
"Ji. Namaste."
"Namaste," he returned. A pause. "Aadya said you have a habit of looking people in the eye even when you're nervous."
I blinked. "She said that?"
"She said it's because you've learned the hard way that looking away invites the wrong kind of attention." Another pause. His expression hadn't changed but something in his eyes had. "That is a quality I respect."
He moved past me into the penthouse.
I turned to find Aadyant at my shoulder, watching me with something soft and proud in his expression.
"That's basically a standing ovation from Dadu," he murmured.
"I'm choosing to believe you."
He squeezed my hand. "How do you feel?"
I considered that. Thought about Devika Aunty taking my hands. About Dadi's hug. About Ivaan already calling me bhabhi like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Okay," I said. "Surprisingly okay."
"Good." He pressed a brief kiss to my temple. "Come on. Let's get everyone settled."
I followed him into the penthouse where his family had already spread themselves across the space—Ivaan investigating the kitchen, Ziva asking Aadya rapid-fire questions, Dadi commenting softly to Dadu about the view, Mihir Uncle laughing at something Rishvik had said.
The penthouse felt different. Fuller. Warmer.
Like it had been missing something this whole time, and now the missing thing had finally arrived.
I stood at the edge of it all for a moment, watching.
And then Devika Aunty appeared at my side.
"You're watching us the way Aadyant watches things he's still deciding whether to trust," she said softly, not unkindly.
I glanced at her. "Sorry. I don't mean to be—"
"Don't apologize." She stood beside me, both of us watching the room. "It's a good instinct. Observe before you engage. Understand before you commit." A pause. "You've had to protect yourself. I can see it in the way you hold yourself. And I want you to know that in this family, in this particular corner of it—you don't have to protect yourself from us."
My throat felt very tight suddenly.
"Aadyant told you—"
"Aadyant told us nothing," she said. "What I know, I can see. And what I see is a young woman who has survived things I hope I never have to imagine, and who is still standing here, gracious and brave, welcoming strangers into a home she's made feel safe."
I stared at her.
"That is not nothing," she said gently. "That is extraordinary."
She moved away to where Dadi was admiring the view, leaving me standing by the kitchen island with my hands wrapped around each other and my eyes stinging again.
From across the room, Aadyant caught my eye.
I shook my head at him, the tiniest bit. Meaning: not overwhelmed. Meaning: give me a second.
He understood. Gave me the second.
I took a slow breath.
Okay.
I could do this.
I was already doing this.
~
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